Second Edition News for June 3, 1997

Raalte, The Netherlands, June 1 1997

Baden Burke is riding for the Peddelaars from Hoogeveen. He lives and does a
little bid of work for the Dekker family (Erik and Dick).
Last week he was the team champion of the Peddelaars before Marcel Nagengast.

In other Australian news, the fifth stage of a Six Day Criterium-race in
Rotterdam was won by the Australian rider Scott Simpson.

Paris-Roubaix Espoirs, June 1 1997

Saint-Quentin--Roubaix, 170.5km including 22 sections of cobbles totalling
42.4km. The field included a number of French club teams, eight Belgian teams,
a German team and the US national team.

Among the high finishers one notes Ludovic Capelle, a protege of Michel
Pollentier and a two-time winner of the Ronde van Vlaanderen Espoirs; and
Holger Loew, the reigning junior world road champion.

Twenty-one-year-old Walloon Marc Chanoine, who lives at La Louviere, near Mons,
attacked out of a lead group of 12 on the cobbled section of the Carrefour de
l'Arbre, some 15km from the finish towards the end of a day that had been made
particularly difficult by severe head winds. After the race he told reporters:
"Say that Dirk De Wolf spoke to me only this week. He explained to me that when
he finished second [in the pro Paris-Roubaix, to Jean-Marie Wampers in 1989] it
was there that the
decision was made." Chanoine followed the advice to the letter. There then
followed "the 15 hardest kilometres of my career. At one point the gap got up
to 20 seconds but then it dropped to less than half that." In fact Hungarian
Laszlo Bodrogi, who has lived in France since 1990, was only some 50 metres
short of catching Chanoine when the leader entered the velodrome at Roubaix.
Earlier Stephane Delimauges (a specialist in riding alone who was second in the
1996 Chrono des Herbiers time trial) had essayed a brave breakaway that lasted
60km -- particularly brave in that he crashed heavily in the Chemin des
Abbatoirs cobbled section in the course of it, suffering what he took at first
to have been a broken nose. With 10km to go, Delimauges tried for a second,
unsuccessful, break from the group chasing Chanoine and Bodrogi.

Jalabert shows up again at the Tour of the Mining Valleys

Following his lay off from racing since the Amstel Gold Race (save for an
appearance in the Criterium de Calais in May) Laurent Jalabert takes the start
of the four-day Tour of the Mining Valleys in northern Spain today (June 2).
Jalabert, who wished this year to avoid relatively high-pressure events like
the Dauphine Libere in his
build up to the Tour de France, initially planned to make his come-back in the
Tour of Luxembourg (June 12-15), a race he will still ride. Finally, Jalabert
will ride the French national championships at Montlhery on June 29. Jalabert
is making his first appearance in the Spanish race -- as his directeur sportif
Manolo Saiz puts it,
to "train on the cols". Jalabert says he's been told that the race is "up and
down all day -- that's ideal. I won't go like a madman but if the opportunity
to win presents itself..." These include two first cats: the Casa del Puerto
(990m) at the end of stage
1, and the col de la Colladona (850m) in stage 4. Few other stars are riding
the race -- however, Jalabert's team-mates will include David Extebarria, the
winner of the 1996 Tour de l'Avenir and Banesto will feature up-and-coming
climber Jose Maria Jimenez as well as English sprinter Jeremy Hunt and Toscaf
features Daniel Clavero, third in last month's Bicicleta Vasca stage race.

Laurent Jalabert's "lay-off" has been far from inactive, particularly last week
when he was based at a hotel in Luz-Saint-Saveur in the Pyrenees with team
mates, notably Alex Zulle, Inigo Cuesta and Mikel Zarrabeitiia and undertook
several excursions into the mountains including a full reconnaisance of the
1997 Tour stage between
Pau and Loudenvielle.

Death of Edouard Muller

French pro of the 1940s and 1950s Edouard Muller died at home in
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on May 28, aged 77. Muller took part in five Tours de
France between 1947 and 1952, taking a stage victory at Rennes in 1951. He also
won the Tour de l'Ouest in 1947 and Paris--Clermont-Ferrand in 1951.